


The Ghost of a Chance

by atothej



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Character Death, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24917332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atothej/pseuds/atothej
Summary: The Asset's only constant companion is the ghost that haunts him.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 19
Kudos: 108





	The Ghost of a Chance

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to tumblr as a prompt fill.
> 
> **Anonymous:** _41 [ghost/living person au]_
> 
> **WARNING:** Please head the tags. This does contain a Major Character Death, as is implied by the nature of the prompt. The death does not occur "on screen" but it is mentioned.

The Asset is perched atop the rickety remains of a relay station, rifle balanced carefully on what’s left of the safety railing and eye pressed tight to the scope as he tracks his target’s lazy lope around the facility’s perimeter, when the ghost first appears.

“Aim higher.”

The Asset doesn’t startle. Such reflexive reactions were corrected long ago to ensure they would never interfere with a mission.

He tenses, though, focusing in on his other senses even as his eyes stay locked on the guard in his crosshairs. There’s no new scent on the wind, no tell-tale shift of fabric to be heard, no unexpected warmth at his back–just a voice.

“Man, your aim’s off. Never gonna hit him at this distance without a little assist from good ol’ Mother Nature, don’t matter what you’re shooting with.”

Mouth twitching downwards as he fights against a sudden flair of indignation, the Asset curls his finger around the trigger and fires.

He misses.

“Told you so.”

The Asset jerks back from his rifle with a snarl and lashes out behind him with his metal arm as he spins, but he doesn’t connect with anything.

There’s no one there.

* * *

James–the Asset–Sgt. Barnes– _Soldat_ –Bucky? walks into a museum and stares at an exhibit that supposedly features him. Or at least, the man he was, once upon a time. 

There are photographs everywhere, mostly black and white, but a few have been brought to life with splashes of too-bright color.

He stares at one of the largest photos in the center of the exhibit, a blown up still of a man he knows to be a target–his _mission_ –with a gloved hand clapped companionably on the shoulder of the Howling Commandoes’ sergeant, the sniper.

The man who is supposedly him is grinning out from the photograph at him, at everyone passing by.

He doesn’t see the resemblance.

* * *

The ghost is back again.

The Asset isn’t sure if it ever really leaves. There’s a faint ache in his jaw that lets him know he’s been taken to the Chair more frequently than usual.

He feels the vague stirrings of curiosity as he watches the ghost carefully side-stepping the handlers so that they don’t step _through_ it. It’s something the Asset is decidedly unfamiliar with, this urge to _ask questions_. It’s not as if the handlers or agents ever answer him, after all.

He waits through the mission brief, though. Keeps his attention on the parameters he is being given, the weapons he is handed, the street directions he is told to memorize.

He lets the curiosity bubble on the back of his tongue until he’s in an elevator, the floors slowly climbing higher and higher to take him to his next target, as alone as he’s going to get with a ghost constantly dogging his steps.

“How did you die?” he finally asks. The words feel familiar, like it’s something he’s asked before, like his mouth has grown used to the shape of them.

The ghost shrugs, and the Asset imagines the faint rustle of fabric bunching and settling that should accompany the gesture.

“It was a while ago,” the ghost answers easily, as if the Asset’s questions aren’t meant to be ignored and punished. “I don’t really remember.”

The Asset has the faintest inkling that the ghost is lying, but he can’t pinpoint what tell he’s picking up on or how he even knows it’s there.

“Did I kill you?”

The ghost doesn’t answer that question out loud, but the way its mouth tightens and its eyes pinch is answer enough.

* * *

Someone is following him.

The man is familiar in the alarming way that the Asset ( _Bucky–_ no, not-Bucky, _who the hell is Bucky!?_ ) barely seems to notice him.

Not-Bucky (but also not-the-Asset) is on the verge of a panic attack when he realizes that he’s been barely-noticing the man for days, _weeks,_ always out of the corner of his eye, the same man drifting behind him as not-Bucky loses himself in crowd after crowd, desperately trying to hide in plain sight from too many enemies whose faces he can’t remember.

The verging panic starts to creep higher and higher up his throat when he realizes that no matter what he tries, he can’t shake the man from his tail.

It crests over into a full-fledge wave when the man walks _through_ the closed door (and chair and filing cabinet) not-Bucky had just barricaded himself behind.

He can’t breath.

“Woah, hey, it’s okay!” the man exclaims as he rushes forward. His hands reach out towards not-Bucky, and they move up and down like the man is trying to _comfort_ him, but there’s nothing _touching_ him. “It’s just me, just your friendly neighborhood ghost.”

Not-Bucky passes out then. He’s pretty sure Bucky would have reacted the same way, too.

* * *

The Asset is cold.

The Asset doesn’t really remember being _warm,_ but there is a marked difference between the cold he associates with being awake, being _out_ , and the cold that comes from the Freezer.

This is the Freezer kind of cold.

His teeth are starting to chatter as the cold seeps into his veins and frost crusts around the tears leaking silently from his eyes.

A scream sits frozen in his throat.

“Shh, don’t panic,” the ghost whispers in his ear. “You’re okay. Just go to sleep, okay? I’ll be here when you wake up, I promise. I’m not going anywhere.”

The Asset imagines he can feel it’s breath across his cheek–faint and tickling and _warm_.

Or maybe that’s just the frostbite setting in.

* * *

James has decided to be James, for now. He’s not ready to be Bucky again. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be ready for that.

He’s started keeping a journal, a notebook where he fills up every empty space on the pages with jumbled bits of memories as they filter back too-slow and too-fast all at the same time.

It was the ghost’s idea.

He was very insistent about it ( _kept muttering about he could only have the same conversation so many times, kept complaining about how the afterlife wasn’t supposed to be some kind of futzed up rendition of Groundhog Day, whatever that meant_ ) and James really only started the whole thing to get the damned ghost to _shut up about it already_.

Memories are a very touchy subject for James these days.

James wakes up with a woman’s choked out last request echoing in his ears and acrid bile climbing up this throat. Whatever it was she wanted, he doesn’t think he honored it.

The ghost crosses the room to hover where James left his notebook yesterday sitting on an upturned crate that he pretends is a functionable table. James glares at him across the scant few feet between them, but the ghost just folds his legs up under him and sits next to the crate, his eyebrows raised pointedly and his mouth on the verge of opening to no doubt annoy James into doing what he wants.

“ _Fine_.” James stomps over and slumps next to the crate as well, none too gently, and the pencil stub he’d left on top of the notebook clatters onto the floor and starts a pathetic attempt to roll away.

“Why don’t the others haunt me as well?” James asks as he snatches up the pencil and gnaws at the dented up metal end that’s meant to hold an eraser.

The ghost tips over to prop an elbow on his knee and a fist under his chin. “How do you know they’re not?”

His jaw clenches, so tight his back molars grind together, and James glares from the ghost to the notebook and back again. His raises his own eyebrows back in challenge.

“What? What’s with the look?” The ghost grins, but it’s too sharp around the edges. “You’re the one always harping on ‘bout how you don’t remember jack, so how would you know?”

“They _don’t,”_ James insists, the metal fist slamming down and splitting the sad little crate in two. “Not outside of my head, anyway. It’s only ever you, here. What’s so special about you?”

The ghost regards him coolly for a long stretch of too-silent seconds before his eyes shutter as he glances away from James and his mouth twists up in something like sadness. “Nothing,” he says lowly, softly. “I’ve been telling you for ages, you really shoulda aimed higher.”

* * *

The Asset has been given a more detailed mission than usual, this time. He has a photo of a young woman exiting a store with her arms full of bags, a vague description of a man who’s the actual target, and a list of restaurants the woman frequents.

He fans his fingers over the thin pile of information provided by the handler. “The mission?” 

“Follow her, but don’t be seen.” The handler lays out a small assortment of weapons on the table between them, much less than the Asset is accustomed to being equipped with–a few knives, a single hand gun. “The target will show himself soon enough. By all accounts, he can never stay away from her for too long.”

The Asset slides the photograph of the woman back to the top of the pile. “His wife?”

The handler scoffs. “His _soulmate_. The wife is a distraction, a smokescreen. Once he shows up, don’t kill them, capture them. _Alive and in tact,_ both of them. With his soulmate there, we’ll be able to make him finally talk.”

The Asset nods and starts slipping the weapons away into hidden holsters. “Understood.”

In the corner, the ghost is hanging back, curled in on itself. It never says much when the handlers are around, but once the Asset has been sent out to fulfill his mission, the ghost usually won’t shut up, jabbering on and on about inconsequential things that the Asset struggles to drown out so that he can _concentrate_.

This mission, the ghost stays eerily silent. The quiet doesn’t improve the Asset’s focus at all.

* * *

Steve makes for a fairly decent Bucky-fact checker.

Because the things is, James has memories that he _thinks_ are memories, but are actually something closer to daydreams or maybe just wishful thinking. Steve, rather helpfully, knows an awful lot more about Bucky than James does, and once he’s able to successfully separate _Steve_ from _Mission,_ he’s a very useful resource in the actual-memories department.

Today they’re sitting on a bench in Central Park surrounding by the roaming populace of New York City, demolishing a stack of hotdogs procured from a very bemused cart vendor. James has found that it’s much easier to talk to Steve when there’s no walls around them and plenty of people to use as distractions should the need to escape arise. Also, it’s simple enough to pretend there’s not a ghost constantly hanging around when he can pretend the man lurking at the edge of his peripherals is just a tourist boggling over the sight of Captain America in skinny jeans.

“Did Bucky–did I have a soulmate?” James asks as he sets aside a hotdog smothered in relish. He fishes a small notebook out of his jacket pocket and jots down a note that he definitely does not like relish.

Steve doesn’t answer, and the moment drags on long enough that James notices the weirdness and looks back up from his notebook. Steve is staring at him, but it’s not that _I can’t believe you’re really here_ way, which is pretty common. No, it’s that _Why do you only ever ask about the things I don’t want to be the one to have to tell you_?

James isn’t sure who else he’s meant to ask if not Steve, so he doesn’t really understand it.

“I, uh–you never met them?” Steve stutters out. He stuffs a whole hotdog in his mouth, but it’s not like that’s going to last long. Sure enough, the hotdog’s gone within a few seconds, and then he’s back to stumbling his way through an answer. “I don’t think you did, at least. You never mentioned it. But you–you have a mark, yeah.”

Bucky’s right hand comes up to curve over the metal forearm, his rough, bitten nails biting through the thin fabric of his jacket and into the gaps between plates. “What’d it say?”

“It’s–it wasn’t on your arm.” Steve’s face is scrunched up like every word is causing him physical pain. “You should still…have it. Unless they–”

“Where is it?” James demands. The ghost moves closer like he wants to interrupt them, but Steve can’t even see him and James is busy ignoring him, so what’s he going to do?

“Back of your neck.” Steve’s fingers flutter over his own neck to demonstrate, tracing along the bottom edge of his hairline.

James’s hands fly to the tangled mess of hair, yanking at the strands so that he can run his flesh fingertips over the skin underneath, but it all just feels like _skin_.

“Here, just–pull your hair up outta the way and turn around,” Steve instructs lowly as he pulls his phone from a pocket.

James twists and piles the mounds of hair on top of his head in a vice-like grip, his lips trembling as he holds back too many questions that don’t have enough answers.

Steve holds the phone over his shoulder, and James turns back around as he grabs it, eyes eagerly drinking in every pixel on the screen.

And there it is–his mark. It looks like a tattoo, the words inked deep and dark into skin just below his hairline. James reads them through a sudden sheen of tears.

_Aim higher._

James looks up and meets the ghost’s eyes for the first time in days. 

He stares back at his soulmate, and all the little pieces of a heart he’s been pushing back into a little pile, trying to make something substantial out of it again, they slip through his fingers and shatter into a thousand little razor-edged shards.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr at [promptmewinterhawk](https://promptmewinterhawk.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
